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Sunday, 18 August 2013

My interview experiences with premier Indian B-schools

I feel
privileged to have experience of competing in admission processes for Executive
MBA from premier Indian B-schools. Post CAT/GMAT, it starts with submitting papers on
SOP, Work-ex, Reco-letters, Questionnaires etc and ends with a crucial Personal
Interview. The whole process requires a lot of introspection. I feel it as a
rich experience to get involved in those processes with premier Indian
B-Schools like IIMs, XLRI, SP Jain’s, NMIMS, IMT etc., I would like to
summarize all my experiences here:

I feel that the
following are three important qualities that are tested in the admission
process: ‘Clarity of thought’, ’Positive attitude’, ’Presentation skills’.

Clarity
on Career & Course:

Clarity is
expected on “why this course?”. Different answers for this Q are like this:
For a working guy, MBA course may be useful for career progression.It may be useful in switching to new field of
work. For example, For an IT developer, it may be useful to switch over to
sales & marketing of IT products/services.

A rigorous
course curriculum, learning from well reputed & experienced professors,
diverse mix of batch mates, assignments & case studies, international
immersion programmes give you a lot of exposure. A little study about the B-school
& the specified course is a bit useful. In this regard, the following
aspects are useful:

Knowledge on
history of the B-school, it’s strengths & strategic location, information
on the specific course, core-topics & electives dealt in the course,
enquiries with alumni, a bit of R&D on placements.

You
may be tested on your seriousness about joining the course. The interviewer may
suggest another course or career path and may strongly say that you are much
suitable for that. You need to be strong and clear to defend your stand.

Some
Funda:

Basic knowledge
on Finance fundamentals gives a lot of confidence to a typical
Engineering/Science graduate. Check
out this document prepared by IIM Shillong. I found it quite useful. You
may expect Q like: ‘How is inflation rate calculated?’ or ‘what is sensex?’
etc.

Be clear and
submit facts while filling up application forms, writing SOP & other papers
etc., required in the admission process. Keep a copy of all those documents and
go through those docs carefully before the interview. You may expect some Q’s
from the documents submitted by you.Of
course, it is about you and prepared by you only.

Most generally,
the interview starts with the question “Tell about you”. Try to utilize it
cleverly. This may be the only direct question posed at you which can be used
by you to hint at your strong areas and thus leading the direction of interview
to your comfort zone. And of course there is a chance that it ends up as a
casual Q and may not have any impact on the next course of i/v. The
interviewers may follow strictly their agenda of Q’s. But keep one thing in
mind. Never lose confidence. Throughout the interview, make use of commonsense
and utilize every opportunity to pull the course of interview in to your
stronger zones.

Don’t be much
afraid of Q’s from your graduation syllabus. On that aspect, you should be able
to give an overall picture. For example, let us suppose that you are an
Engineer in Electronics & Communications. Remember it’s not an interview
for scientist in DRDO or ISRO. No need of going deep in to the core engineering
topics but a quick outlook is enough. Look at the following questions:

How Electronics
is relevant to the industry? What are analog and digital devices? Specify some
advantages of OFC? What are various modulation techniques in communication?
What is VLSI? Brief on microprocessors and its relevance in digital products?

You are not expected
to draw a circuit diagram and explain its operation. Rather you are definitely expected
to sound some relevance and acquaintance with the topic.

You may expect a
Q on books
you read. Prepare a brief on that front. Have a review of books you
read, author names, a little brief about. If you say that you don’t have book
reading habit, then you may expect an immediate Q: “You have already come out
of college long back. And you don’t have a book reading habit. You need to have
a lot of reading and case studies in MBA. How can you cope up with a rigorous
course curriculum?”

The following
list is my answer for the Q on books:

‘Who
moved my cheese’, ‘The world is flat’, ‘Business Maharajas’, ‘Rich dad poor
dad’, ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’, ‘Count your chickens before they hatch’,
‘My experiments with truth’.

Prepare
well about your work-ex. You are expected to know about your organization,
sector, and competitors of your organization etc. You may expect Q’s like: ‘Is
your organization listed?’, ‘What are the present prospects of your
organization?’, ‘With the similar work-ex which are the other companies you can
aim for?’. If you specify ‘Project Management’ in your work-ex, you may expect
a brief on PERT & CPM methods. Irrespective of whether you used these
techniques, you may be expected at least to expand the terms and a little brief
there on.

Being
from Telecom sector, I faced with the Q’s like ‘what is mobile VAS?’, ‘what is
MVNO?’, ‘Differentiate b/w 2G,3G and 4G technologies?’, ‘Expand CDMA/GSM/GPRS’,
‘Which companies use GSM and which use CDMA technology?’, ‘Tell about spectrum
allocation’, ‘What are the changes in Telecom sector after liberalization?’, ‘Out
of the following, which holds a key role in the present Telecom scenario: Telecom
Service Provider/Mobile Equipment manufacturer/Telecom S/W developer etc?’

You
need not be much worried if your acads are on lower side but get prepared for
the Q: ‘Why less marks in your graduation?’ or ‘Why are you not consistent in
studies?’. You may expect a Q like: ‘why this gap in your academic
career/work-ex career?’ in case it’s relevant to you.

Don’t
get surprised and be ready for the following Q’s on numbers and names from ‘social
awareness’ front:

How
many states in India? How many Loksabha & Rajyasabha seats? Name the Chief
Ministers of all the border states of your state? Name the state in which the
B-School is located? For which your place/state is famous for? Name the cabinet
ministers of powerful portfolios (Finance, Commerce, External affairs, Home
etc)? How many cabinet ministers? Is there any limit on number of cabinet
ministers?

Sometimes
your view on national integrity is tested. You may expect a Q like ‘Do you
support Naxal’s movement? Why or why not?’. They expect a balanced answer rather
than taking an extreme stance.

You
can expect the following Q’s from ‘current affairs’ front:

‘If
you are to decide, what is your stand on Pakistan?’, ‘What about depreciation of
Rupee value?’, ‘Who is the head of RBI or SEBI?’, ’What are the present rates
of RBI? (Repo, Reverse repo etc)’, ‘What does SEBI do?’ ‘What about Euro debt
crisis?’. It is advised to be in touch with the recent happenings on India and
world fronts.

All
of a sudden some Q’s like the following may pop up for a surprise:

‘Tell
about T20?’, ‘Tell about Apple’s Ipod’ or ‘why Nandan Nilekani is in news?’.

Another
frequent Q that needs to be taken care of is: ‘What are your plans if you are
not placed after your MBA?’ or ‘Do you understand the risks in taking
up the course?’ or ‘If you are selected, will you join after taking sabbatical
from your organization?’

Market
yourself:

‘Your
presentation of yourself’ is very important. Your exuberance of confidence
counts a lot. Don’t hesitate to showcase your strengths. I collected all my
write-ups from my blog on the theme ‘Math in Real life things’ and prepared a document
to present it to the interview board. My idea is to show case my analytical
skills. This type of preparation boosts your confidence levels. Try to be a
little different from conventional methods and I feel that a little crossing of border may not be wrong as long as you have
clarity on what you do.

Be
positive. Don’t lose hope if you are faced with a Q that you can’t answer. For
example, if you are asked to name CM of Orissa state and if you forgot name of
the gentleman, then what will you do? You need not bluntly leave it. After you
politely say that you don’t remember the name of CM, at least you may tell
something that you know about Orissa. You may refer Chilka-lake or the capital
city Bhuvaneswar or famous classical dance mode of Orissa -Odissi or the famous
Puri-Jagannath temple. After all you are tested on social awareness front and
you know something related to that. This type of approach keeps your tempo on
top.